


Ashes to Ashes

by marrowbones



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: End of the end of the world, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M, Post-Series, Spoilers for Episode 168
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:08:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24451123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marrowbones/pseuds/marrowbones
Summary: A conversation at the end of the world.
Relationships: Oliver Banks/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 5
Kudos: 55





	Ashes to Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> Sometimes you see two tired men who had parallel journeys to becoming unwitting avatars of the fear gods they serve and go "is anyone gonna make them kiss" and then not even wait for an answer.
> 
> (joke's on me because I didn't manage to get them to kiss)
> 
> Inspired by tomasortega's lovely [tumblr post.](https://tomasortega.tumblr.com/post/618739465479962624/i-would-read-about-oliver-quietly-holding-out-his)

The Archivist is alone, at the end of all things. 

At first, when the Spider had been satisfied and the promise of eternity loomed before him, the Archivist sought knowledge. Whatever new experiences were possible in this land held in stasis, he wanted to have them. So he crossed oceans, traversed the depths of the earth and braved the lonely mists, wiling away days and months in cataloguing until he knew as much of the bottom of the ocean and the crust of Earth as of the comforting chill of Isolation, the cleansing rage of the Slaughter, the consuming joy of Filth. 

But the novelty of physical travel wore out, as did the title of Archivist. Not because his curiosity was slaked, but because the burdens of a physical form weighed heavy even without hunger to assuage or thirst to quench: the Archivist had grown heartsick, and his god had no notion of the desire for _home_.

So he retreated here, to the Panopticon, which has towered over London for a thousand years and more. It is there, at the top of his domain, that he keeps his vigil, as he has for centuries.

The years have not been kind. Mostly, they have been indifferent. Some of them, long, long ago, filled with incongruous warmth and laughter. But the intervening years have stripped him hollow and sown him with dust. He has grown used to being alone. 

Well. Almost alone. 

“Alright, Jon?” Oliver says from behind him. 

Since the fear began to be siphoned from this world by the slow seep of enough human deaths, most everything has lost its color. No carnavalesque shows of garish costumes, no glitches of colors that should not exist. Not even a decent shade of darkness; with no one left to fear it, the Dark has paled, dwindling along with everything else. 

Oliver, by contrast, is beautiful in a way that few things are beautiful anymore. He was always handsome, with that sharp jaw and his braids gathered back into a neat bun, but now his skin has a vital glow, free of the careworn cast that Jon himself has assumed over millennia. He is ripe with the fear of the inevitable, with stories to tell—he, the sun Jon turns to, as Jon is the earth into which dying things might sink their hungry roots. They have kept each other company through this long, unchanging age.

Jon raises a hand in greeting.

He imagines he must look shabby beside Oliver, all patchwork scars and two different-colored eyes, shadows so deep beneath them they might as well be engraved. 

But Oliver is a gentleman. He says, “You look well.” 

“So do you,” Jon says. 

He doesn’t need to ask why Oliver’s here, even though it’s been decades since they saw each other last. Oliver doesn’t bother to beat around the bush; small talk is something that fell away early, even before the apocalypse. A little piece of humanity sloughed off like so much dead skin. 

Still, Oliver sits down beside him and leans back on his hands. 

“No halo, then?” Jon asks. 

Oliver smiles, and the lines around his eyes crinkle with warmth. “No.”

“Scythe?”

“Think those were nixed sometime in the 19th century.”

“Mn. The Industrial Revolution must’ve been hell on the pastoral image,” Jon says, but now he is smiling, too.

“There were some comics that got close, few decades before the world ended,” Oliver offers. 

At that, Jon snorts. “I have it on reliable authority that I know very little about popular culture,” he says. 

Oliver shakes his head in fake disappointment. “And you’ve had all this time to catch up.”

He means it as a joke, but Jon feels his throat go tight with sudden grief. One of the many things he neglected because he couldn’t bear to enjoy it without—couldn’t bear to enjoy it alone. 

He wonders if there has ever been a right way to greet this moment, if anyone in the history of the world has never regretted leaving even some small thing undone, some modest hope unfulfilled. The man to whom his grey eye once belonged would surely resent how little he has profited from this abundance of time. But seeing everything is different from knowing everything—is different from _understanding_ everything—and what did Jonah Magnus really know or understand, in the end? What use all this time besides delaying the inevitable?

“You’re not going to make me play chess, are you?” Oliver says lightly when Jon is a little too quiet for a little too long. “I’m rubbish at chess.” 

Jon just about manages a laugh. “No. Not faro, either.”

“That’s good. I make a pretty bad gambler, as well.”

Far below them, Jon has seen the roots creeping up the base of the tower since well before Oliver’s arrival, twining dark, pulsing tendrils into the mortar and stone like ivy.

“Where, ah,” Jon has to pause to clear his throat. “Where are mine?” 

Oliver’s gaze follows his. Then he reaches out. He traces Jon’s hair around the shape of his ear, thumbs the corner of his eye, brushes his knuckles fleetingly across Jon’s lips. Jon nods and swallows hard. Musters that wry little quirk of a smile that he so often turns on himself.

“Funny,” he says. “After all these years, I thought I wouldn’t be scared, when the time came.”

Oliver’s voice is soft as wind in dry grass when he says, “I wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.”

Jon hugs his knees to his chest. “And what if I want to see what comes after?”

“Sorry, mate. Not really my bag.” Oliver doesn’t sound very sorry, but Jon can hardly begrudge him his nature. 

Wan sunlight catches in Oliver’s eyes and turns them molten amber. He has always looked so tired and so kind, and maybe he is not quite sorry, but he is patient, Jon knows. He will wait with him as long as it takes, and then, when Jon is ready, Oliver will stand, brush off the dust, and hold out his hand.

Jon, when he takes it, may never know the after of this world, but he will, at least, know rest. 

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [tumblr](https://marrowbones.tumblr.com/post/619414300713500673/ashes-to-ashes) if you'd rather rb it there.


End file.
